How to Break Sub-20 in 30 Days: A Day-by-Day Plan
Sub-20 is the most common plateau in speedcubing, and the most beatable. If you've been stuck between 22 and 30 seconds for months, this is a realistic 30-day plan to get you across. It's not a miracle. It's just the boring work, organized efficiently.
More than any other milestone in cubing, sub-20 is the barrier where dabblers separate from serious hobbyists. Cubers who reach it tend to keep improving for years; cubers who don't usually quit within twelve months. The gap between 25 seconds and 19.99 seconds isn't talent, it's a specific, learnable set of skills that most cubers never organize properly. This guide organizes them.
I write this from the wrong side of that barrier, not above it. I picked up the cube in Budapest in 2016, learned all the algorithms, and still sat stuck in the mid-20s for months because my recognition was slow. The structure below is essentially the routine that finally got me across, my best single now stands at 18.2 seconds, and the gains started the moment I stopped doing random solves and began drilling deliberately.
Who This Plan Is Actually For
Before spending 30 days on this, check that you match the starting profile:
- You're currently averaging between 22 and 30 seconds on an honest, timed average of 12
- You know beginner CFOP (cross, F2L, OLL, PLL in that order)
- You've at least partially learned 2-look OLL (10 algorithms) and 2-look PLL (6 algorithms)
- You can realistically commit 45 to 60 minutes per day, every day, for 30 days
- You have a working 3x3 (doesn't need to be a flagship), a timer, and a scramble generator
If you're above 30 seconds on average, spend another month solidifying CFOP basics before attempting this plan. You'll get more out of it. If you're already sub-22, you can probably compress this timeline to 14–21 days by moving faster through the early weeks.
The Sub-20 Math: Where Your Time Actually Goes
A typical sub-20 solve breaks down into rough time budgets for each CFOP stage. Understanding these targets tells you exactly which stage is eating your time.
Almost half of the time you need to save lives in F2L. Cross and last layer together contribute the other half. If your solves look dramatically different from the "28s avg" row above (say your cross is already fast but your last layer is 8 seconds), adjust the plan accordingly. Most intermediate cubers match the standard profile closely.
Day 0: Baseline Assessment
Before starting, spend one session timing 50 solves at your normal pace. Don't rush, don't warm up, don't do anything unusual. Record:
- Your average of 50 (discard the best and worst 5)
- A rough estimate of how long cross, F2L, OLL, and PLL each take
- Which specific cases (if any) trip you up repeatedly
Save this somewhere. You'll repeat the exact same measurement on day 30 and the numbers will tell you honestly whether the plan worked.
The 30-Day Plan
Fix the Foundation
Days 1–3: Cross efficiency. Cross is the most undertrained phase of CFOP. Most 28-second cubers spend 4 seconds on cross when 2 is achievable today. Drill: scramble the cube, use all 15 seconds of inspection to plan your entire cross, then execute with your eyes closed. If you lose pieces, your plan wasn't concrete enough, try again. Do this 20 times per session. By day 3 you should hit all four edges from inspection roughly 70% of the time.
Days 4–7: F2L fundamentals. Review the 41 standard F2L cases. Focus only on the ones where you currently improvise rather than execute a known algorithm, those are the pause generators. Use the F2L Flashcard mode on the trainer for 20 minutes per session, then do 30 timed solves focusing specifically on smooth pair-to-pair transitions. Don't worry about the clock, worry about whether your hands stop moving.
Complete Your Last Layer
Days 8–10: Finish PLL. If you only know 2-look PLL, you need to add 15 new algorithms. That sounds intimidating but it's genuinely doable in three days with focused repetition. Learn in this order:
- Day 8: U-perms (Ua, Ub), A-perms (Aa, Ab), H-perm, Z-perm. These are the easiest and most frequent, knock them out first.
- Day 9: T-perm, Y-perm, J-perms (Ja, Jb), R-perms (Ra, Rb). Short, common, high-return.
- Day 10: F-perm, V-perm, N-perms (Na, Nb), E-perm, G-perms (Ga, Gb, Gc, Gd). The harder ones. Drill each 30 times.
Days 11–14: Expand OLL. You do not need full OLL to break sub-20. You need the 15 to 20 most common cases. If you already know the seven corner-orientation cases from our Top 10 OLL article (Sune, Anti-Sune, H, Pi, U, T, L) plus the three edge-orientation cases, you're already at 10. Add these six next: OLL 31, 32, 33, 44, 45, 46 (the small T-shape and P-shape cases). Drill each new algorithm 50 times before moving to the next.
Look-Ahead Integration
This is where cubers quit. Your times will temporarily get worse in week 3 because you're about to force yourself to turn slower than your hands want to. This is not optional. Push through.
The daily slow-solve drill: Set a metronome app to 2 beats per second. Solve at exactly that pace. If you need to pause anywhere during F2L, the solve has failed, restart. 20 solves per session at 2 TPS. By day 18, move to 3 TPS. By day 21, try 4 TPS. The target is smooth turning with zero recognition pauses, at a controlled, measured speed. Then your normal-tempo solves will inherit that smoothness.
Also this week: dedicate 10 minutes per day to the look-ahead techniques covered in detail in our F2L guide. Start tracking your second F2L pair during your first insertion. Just the second pair. Nothing more.
Speed and Consistency
Days 22–26: Progressive speed. Structure each session as 20 slow solves (4 TPS), then 30 normal-tempo timed solves, then 10 "PB attempts" where you actively push for your best time. The slow solves anchor your new habits; the fast solves expose where the habits haven't solidified yet.
Days 27–30: Race yourself. Three sessions of 50 timed solves. Record every single solve time. On day 30, compute your average. If you've been honest with the plan, the number will be sub-20. Don't cherry-pick your best solves, an honest average is what matters.
Common Mistakes That Derail This Plan
Learning too many algorithms too fast. Trying to memorize 20 new PLLs and 15 new OLLs in week one means you'll retain zero of them. Algorithms need 48 hours and physical repetition to stick. Respect the schedule.
Refusing to slow down in week 3. The instinct to turn fast is exactly the habit that's keeping you above 20. You cannot think your way to sub-20 by speeding up what you already do, you have to rebuild the fundamentals underneath. Slow solving is that rebuild.
Skipping the measurement days. The day 0 and day 30 baseline solves are the objective record. Skipping them means you won't know whether the plan worked or not, and without feedback you can't correct course.
Obsessing over the timer during drill sessions. 50 rushed, sloppy solves don't train anything except rushed, sloppy solving. Quality of reps beats quantity every time. If a session feels frantic, slow down.
Using a new cube mid-plan. If you buy a flagship on day 14 and expect it to help you break sub-20, the break-in period and muscle memory adjustment will cost you days of progress. Stick with the cube you started with. Hardware genuinely does not matter at this level.
The Honest Truth
Some cubers will hit sub-20 in 30 days. Others will finish at 20.5, 21, or 22. That's genuinely fine. The difference between making it in exactly 30 days versus 45 usually isn't talent or dedication, it's whether the starting point was closer to 25 seconds or closer to 30. Finishing at 20.5 after a month means you'll almost certainly be sub-20 within two more weeks of continued practice.
If you complete this plan honestly and you're still at 22 seconds, don't restart the whole plan. Instead, diagnose which stage is still slow and run a targeted two-week drill on only that stage. Nine times out of ten, it's either F2L look-ahead (week 3 content) or a specific algorithm set you didn't finish learning (week 2 content). Attack the gap directly rather than repeating the whole cycle.
After Sub-20: What's Next
Sub-15 is the next natural target. Full OLL (the remaining 37 cases), genuinely fluent full PLL, basic color neutrality, and serious F2L look-ahead are what separates sub-20 from sub-15. That transition typically takes 3 to 6 months of continued practice at roughly the same intensity. Sub-10 is another year beyond that. The path keeps opening as long as you keep walking.
Sub-20 isn't the finish line. It's just where cubing stops feeling like memorization and starts feeling like a craft. The rest is the fun part.
Start drilling today
The OLL, PLL, and F2L trainers are built exactly for the recognition drills in this plan.
Open the Trainer →Trevor broke his own 25-second plateau in about two months of recognition drilling; this 30-day plan is a distilled version of what worked. Read the full story →
Further Reading & External Resources
These external tools and communities support the timing, accountability, and algorithm work that the 30-day plan requires:
- csTimer (Free Online Timer). The standard free timer used by most serious speedcubers. Includes statistical analysis and session history. The day 0 and day 30 baseline measurements in this plan are most accurate when recorded with csTimer rather than a phone stopwatch, and the data can be exported for direct comparison.
- WCA Competition Finder. Find upcoming WCA-sanctioned 3x3 competitions near you. Nothing accelerates sub-20 progress like having a competition date on your calendar: the external pressure is uniquely motivating.
- r/Cubers on Reddit. Post your day 0 baseline time to the community and share your weekly progress. External accountability measurably improves training plan completion rates, and the community is genuinely supportive of cubers chasing the sub-20 barrier specifically.
- SpeedSolving Wiki: CFOP Method. Comprehensive overview of the full CFOP solve method this plan is built around, including background on each stage and links to algorithm databases for the PLL and OLL sets covered in weeks 1 and 2.
Related reading: The 10 Most Important OLL Cases Every Speedcuber Should Master First · Advanced F2L Look-Ahead Techniques That Actually Work